Software, Agile Process, SDLC, Kanban, Lean, RUP, Use Case, and Requirements. Along with a dash of unrelated material.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Another agile correction

If you're trying to find information about agile on the internet, I hope you've found that there is a lot of wrong information out there. Let me give you an example.

Here's a response based on the question of lean relating to agile.

"Many of the principles will find an echo in a Lean principle too, but one fundamental difference to keep in mind: Lean does NOT talk about iterations - only about reducing work-in-progress and delivering early. So you can be Lean without doing any iterations, but you cannot be Agile without iterations."

This is an interesting statement: "you cannot be agile without iterations". I think Mary Poppendyke, David Anderson, and many, many other agile leaders would find this untrue. The Scrumban approach as well many of the articles I've read about Kanban focus on flow and still claim they are agile without iterations. I think Mary Poppendyke believes that lean is agile dispite not having iterations.

I suppose saying that agile requires iterations really depends on what you would define agile as. In my world, an agile project deals with plan/do/inspect/adapt which requires doing, inspecting, and adapting, iterations are keys. But I can also see a flow approach that inspects and adapts on a per story basis.